


the course of true love never did run smooth

by JaneScarlett



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: (with a little bit of angst), F/M, river song secret santa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-11
Updated: 2018-01-11
Packaged: 2019-03-03 07:44:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13336602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JaneScarlett/pseuds/JaneScarlett
Summary: Kissing the Doctor would give an answer to the question of if he cared for her at all.





	the course of true love never did run smooth

**Author's Note:**

  * For [HellNHighHeels](https://archiveofourown.org/users/HellNHighHeels/gifts).



> Title is from Shakespeare. Thanks to Savage and Del, for the beta. 
> 
> Written for the lovely xhellnhighheelsx for the 2017 River Song Secret Santa! Happy holidays and happy new year!!!

_"River always knows."_

They've all said it at varying times to her. Amy and Rory and the Doctor... no matter when she met them or where in those days after Berlin, they always seemed to have an unshakable faith that she knows everything. River will know how to break out of a locked room, or into a vault; she knows how everyone takes their tea, or the best restaurant on this side of the Galaxy.

After a lifetime of being alone, their faith in her was touching, something River tried to live up to. And in many cases, they were right. She did know a great many things, though it was hardly preternatural ability. A good memory helped; her training from Madame Kovarian granted her a gift for seeing perspectives, reacting to difficult tasks. 

And then there were some things -where if she thought and puzzled the facts- she _did_ just know. She knew, somehow, in Berlin that the Doctor would never die that day, that the trickster would find a way to survive. And she knew what he meant when he pulled her close to whisper in her ear.

_"Find River Song for me..."_

Yes, it had all been right there. There was never a moment she should've had to worry or question; somehow, she knew before Amy showed her. She'd guessed who this 'River Song' must be.

But sometimes, rarely, she _didn't_ know. Educated guess was not immutable fact. Knowledge was different from knowing. Some days, River was confused and uncertain and angry at her lack of understanding. And all too often, it concerned the Doctor.

She didn't really know _him_. The Doctor -despite her knowledge of him- was still a mystery, no matter how often he popped up during her time in University. She couldn't anticipate his reactions. She couldn't read what lay behind the words he said. 

_"Always with the guns, River?"_

That time, they'd been standing back in the TARDIS after she'd opened fire on the Esthat army. There was a vague smell of singed tweed, and her dress was definitely ruined... and yet she'd been proud that she managed to extricate them safely. 

Until he'd said that. The Doctor had looked at the time rotor instead of her as he threw out that sidelong comment... and his words made her feel ashamed. As though relying on her gun made her somehow dirty in his eyes... 

River stopped carrying her gun then, even though the Doctor didn't show up for weeks afterwards. But she still, determinedly, ignored it. She pretended she didn't miss its comforting weight at her hip, pretended she didn't want to carry a gun; not if he reacted so badly to it... But when he showed up the next time to whisk her away and they ended up in danger again, the Doctor stared at her in horror when she didn't immediately brandish a blaster to clear their way through an alien army. 

_"Today is the day you chose not to bring ammunition?" He grabbed her hand, grumbling. "Come on, then, if this is our only option. Run!"_

That entire encounter left her confused. She started carrying her blaster again (set to stun, not kill) but she was unsure what he expected from her. Who he really expected her to be.

After those days, River began to examine his behaviour, his reactions to her in a way she hadn't before. She wanted to understand... because sometimes the Doctor looked at her and made her wonder anew why she'd chosen to save a man who barely seemed to trust her. Some days he spoke, and she couldn't tell if he even liked her, or if the Doctor had any feelings for her besides guilt over her existence. If taking care of River Song was merely an obligation to her parents... and that was why he kept showing up on her doorstep. 

And on those days -after he'd dropped her back at her dorm room- she'd remind herself of better dates. Dates when he laughed so hard at something she said that he made her laugh in response for no reason, and their giggles would echo around the vortex. The evenings when he would return her home and pull her into a hug that lasted too long to be casual. When he kissed her cheek, letting his lips linger... River had closed her eyes, feeling the warmth from his mouth, the pressure lasting one second, two, three, four. Too long for a friendly kiss. It lasted long enough that she could have turned her head and gotten some sort of an answer. 

Because kissing him would leave them both bare, no messy and incomplete words to cloud the issue or hide behind. Kissing the Doctor would give an answer to the question of if he cared for her at all.

But the end, it didn't. Or rather, the result was unsatisfactory. 

Which _hurt_. It felt like she'd waited so long for that kiss. Lying in her bed, she'd imagined it... because the memory of Berlin had only whetted an appetite. It had made her wonder if anything would compare to time energy swirling around them, through them? Perhaps another kiss would only have proven her wrong; that despite the connection she thought they had, there was nothing between them besides a dodgy past.

Or maybe, just maybe, it was more...?

Except, it wasn't.

Oh, it was a good kiss. She had a fleeting glimpse of his face as she leaned in, his hazel eyes wide with surprise before she brushed her lips over his; softly at first, then leaning in deeper. He tasted like candy, something sweet and familiar and enticing as their tongues swept over each other's. He flailed for a moment before one hand wrapped around her waist, the other pressing against her cheek before his fingers tangled into her curls, holding her so close she couldn't escape.

And yet, there was something that was missing. Some deeper connection than just lips and bodies meeting... River pulled away first, calming her hearts and regaining her breath as she debated what she was feeling. Because it wasn't something... _wrong_? But kissing him had just created a reserve between them that she hadn't expected. 

River licked her lips, looking up at the Doctor. Debated what to say. Sometimes, subterfuge was necessary; and she was a master at that, at subtly testing limits, asking leading questions to discover an answer. But other times, a direct question worked best of all. No one expected the truth shouted out at them; and often, the surprise would provoke the most honest of reactions.

"Are you married?" River blurted out tactlessly.

The Doctor's cheeks turned red. He fidgeted, instantly letting her go. 

"Why do you ask? Did you think that we.. I mean that we... we're not...". His voice faded off. She watched as his fingers reached up to adjust his bow tie; he ducked his head down to avoid her gaze.

His words -like his reaction- hurt; she was surprised at how much it hurt. She willed it not to as she decided what to say next. Faced with his obvious discomfort, she felt like she was hastily backtracking. Scrambling back to find a safe ground, while still trying to understand why he'd seemed so reserved even while kissing her. 

"I thought it seemed like the right time to ask," River said cautiously. "I wanted to know the situation." 

"Well," said the Doctor, seeming like he was playing for time. "I have been married."

She could tell by his voice that he'd offered a half-truth. He had been married. But also, somehow these marriages didn't count by his reckoning... so she said nothing. River raised an eyebrow, waiting for the end of the sentence. And finally, grudgingly, the Doctor complied.

"I'm waiting for the right time," he muttered. "To meet the right person. But this -us- right now...". He stopped talking abruptly, peering at her. His cheeks were still flushed, his gaze searching and almost embarrassed.

_River always knows._

His expression right then told her all she needed to know. The right time, the right person.

It wasn't her.

"Never mind," River said breezily, trying to sound unconcerned. "I shouldn't have asked."

* * *

The Doctor ran. Everyone always said it, as though he had a monopoly on that action. 

But River Song ran too. She ran from her confused past, and she ran from her unknown future. In her present, she focussed on working through her degrees without thinking of what it all meant; and she wondered if maybe that's what it was to be a time traveller, if she and the Doctor had that in common? If travelling in time was really trying to find yourself, while fleeing words and hints and maybes and timelines that skew and shift and reform. Running from the things and people you didn't want; or maybe you wanted and dreamed about, but still feared.

After that day and that kiss, she ran. To the unobservant, she was standing still in university as she studied and did fieldwork and learned languages and cultures. But she was running all the same... by the end of her degree, she realised that she wasn't running from the future. She was running from her future with the Doctor. From the feelings that had begun to overwhelm her whenever she saw him. From how her hearts beat faster when she saw his confident smirk, at the intent way he asked how she was, where she was in her timeline. 

He scared her, with how vulnerable he made her feel around him.

She pretended things were the same as before. She still managed to tease and laugh; they still grabbed each other's hands and went on to adventure across the universe.

But she never tried to kiss him again. And when he dropped her back at home, she curled up in her bed alone and cried a little. 

_River always knows._

The closer she came to the end of her degree, the closer she came to realising the truth about many things. To know why she'd chosen to save him in Berlin; and it was easy enough to say guilt. Or obligation. But even as she said those words to herself, River squirmed, hating herself for remembering his body crumpled on the floor, but his eyes fierce and bright as he tried to convince her that he saw something in her she didn't know she'd possessed. Compassion. Loyalty. Decency.

When she thought about it, that was the point when she had fallen a bit in love with the dying man who cared so much. The Doctor was a good man; not the monster she'd been taught to hate. She'd saved him because of an idea of the person he could be. 

But each time she saw him now, she fell out of love with the _idea_ of him, and a little in love with _him_. Ridiculous. He was a child and a clown, with gangly limbs that he couldn't quite control and an infectious giggle. There was that way he was unashamed to sport bow ties and that unruly fringe... not to mention the ridiculous goggles he wore when he attempted TARDIS repairs that didn't need to be done. 

But then he could also be serious and stern, criticising and correcting wrong practices and tyrants before snapping his fingers and sauntering away in his TARDIS. The Doctor was the definition of contradiction, both the best and worst man she'd ever met. He was kind and selfish and caring and unfeeling, all at the same time... and she knew every time she saw him that she was falling in love with him. Absolutely. Completely. Just as he was.

River hated herself for that, for months. Love: just another unforgivable curse. She hated that she’d turned into the kind of person who could care -who could trust- anyone so much. Because it wasn't just about loving the Doctor. It was that she wanted him in her future... and she had fallen in love with a man who had told her that he was waiting for the right time and for a person who didn't happen to be her. 

Having those feelings, then, made her feel out of control. It made her feel weak; something River had tried hard never to be again. 

But weakness was relative. And a day came when she had to examine herself, her motives, again.

Because yes, she loved him. But her feelings weren't for him, they were for her. Emotions could be weakness, yet acknowledging them gave her a choice. It gave her the freedom to make a decision she could live with.

So, she chose.

Once, she'd wielded kisses like a weapon to kill, to save. Now, she chose to save him with a drained technological weapon system, a call across the universe. But more than that: standing on a pyramid, time fracturing around them, she used _his_ preferred weapon. River chose her words carefully.

_"You are loved. And by no one more than me."_

Enough running. In those words, she found a certain freedom. It didn't matter if he felt the same. She could acknowledge her own feelings. Own them, enough to actually say the words.

_River always knows._

She knew enough to understand what he needed to hear that day, and to understand why she needed to say it for herself.

She faced his burst of anger, his incredulity. And then he wrapped a bow tie around her hand - he whispered to look into his eye- and he kissed her for the first time since that evening outside her dorm. 

She'd wondered once if any kiss could compare to Berlin? The energy flowing between them in a sharp pop and crackle to heighten the senses. Bodies, minds, life forces entwining until she couldn't tell where she stopped and he began.

But if possible, this was better. Time splintered and reformed around them with a crystalline focus, yet all River felt was his mouth opened beneath hers, the way his fingers were warm against hers despite the frail fabric wrapped around their palms. 

And no reservations. Just an aching need, a sense of completion and affection and admiration that made her smile. 

_River always knows._

And she knew then. He might not love her in the way she loved him. But what he did feel... it was enough. 

She could live with that.

* * *

_You don't expect a sunset to admire you back._

After two hundred years, River had made peace with her feelings for the Doctor. After all, relationships were always fundamentally uneven. Emotions couldn't be counted, substantiated, compared. He cared for her. She loved him. And that's how it was. 

But then she'd found herself facing the Doctor, an older Doctor than she'd ever known. One who had grown up, so to speak. And what followed was a date unlike one they'd had before, bound up in the promise of twenty-four sequential years together on Darillium. And while day and night often took on a hazy, unreal quality due to the lack of sunlight, they often found themselves in bed, with River's head pillowed on the Doctor's narrow chest and lulled to sleep by his heartsbeats... and she would have been lying if she said she wasn't treasuring every moment of that.

Tonight though, he seemed tense. The Doctor shifted, his long fingers lightly brushing over River's bare shoulder.

"Well?" she murmured sleepily, not bothering to open her eyes. "Penny for them?"

The Doctor shrugged, the movement making his shoulder rise and fall beneath her cheek. "Worthless."

"Your thoughts or the penny?"

"Depends on the penny. Some are worth more than others."

"Oh," River said, stifling a yawn. She moved slightly to sit up; the Doctor's arm held her braced against him until she relaxed again, opening her eyes to study his profile in the near darkness.

"So that's what you've taken up in your current elderly state," she teased gently. "Numismatics?"

He bristled at her old age crack. "Better than archaeology."

She rolled her eyes. "I like old things, Doctor."

"Then there's no need to do my roots, is there?"

"Think again," River muttered. "Now, are you going to tell me what you were thinking of, or do I have to torture it out of you?"

He didn't say anything for a long time. But then his fingers moved, lightly tracing Gallifreyan sigils on her skin. 

_I'm sorry._

River frowned. "You're always sorry for something."

"Always," he agreed. "But I was thinking tonight. Remembering something you said on the ship. Did you..." he paused, suddenly sounding so young and uncertain that he reminded her of his younger self, "did you really believe I don't love you?"

River sighed. Perhaps they would always have needed to have this conversation... but truthfully, it had been over a century. The sting of his younger self's words had faded... the knowledge that she wasn't the right person for him.

She was his good-for-right-now. He'd certainly had enough of those through his lifetimes; she'd come to terms with that, just as she had the knowledge that one day she'd be gone, and he would carry on. So she wasn't certain she wanted to bring it up; but the Doctor was waiting, expectantly. 

"Well?" he demanded. River bit back another sigh. The man had no patience.

"Can you blame me? You never said it." Even to her own ears, it sounded like an excuse. 

The Doctor scowled. "But I showed you. A thousand times. A thousand ways. River, I _married_ you."

"Oh, you'll marry anyone if they're foolish enough to have you."

"Don't talk about yourself like that," the Doctor said sternly. "No one talks about my wife like that, not even herself. Anyway, I told you it was real, on Calderon Beta. Our marriage was real."

"Except..." River sat up, despite the grip the Doctor had on her. 

"Once," she said, "I asked if you were married. You told me you were waiting for the right person. The implication being that it wasn't me."

He hesitated, frowning as he obviously remembering exactly the time she was talking about.

"I couldn't say anything except that," the Doctor finally offered. "You asked if I was married. I was; but we weren't in your timeline."

"You could have lied-"

"I couldn't," the Doctor interrupted. "We don't answer. We evade the truth. But we have never lied to each other, and I wasn't going to start then.

"I promised myself that you would always have a choice, River. If you wanted to choose me, or not... and you were too young, you weren't yourself yet. _We_ couldn't have been right, if it wasn't the right time. I couldn't have told you the truth." 

"Well." She was abruptly, irrationally angry. "I didn't know that was what you meant."

"How could you _not_ have realised that?"

"How should I have known? Back then, Doctor, you showed up in my life when you wanted to. And I never knew what to expect! If you'd criticise me for carrying a gun, for being too violent, for following your words and having too much hope things would turn out alright...". She took a deep breath, trying to calm down.

"How could I have known what you meant? I never knew if I was just an obligation to you. Another version of your companions. And if I never knew what you wanted from me, how could I have known how you felt?" 

"Because... because!" The Doctor reached out, slender fingers gripping her chin and forcing her to face him in the darkness. She could feel his anxiety, his anger, in how his hand trembled against her cheek.

"Because maybe I didn't say it. But you were never easy, yourself! I never knew just how you felt about me, either.

"Think back, River. All that teasing you did to Bow Tie before Egypt? _‘Maybe when you're older.’_ " He mimicked her inflections with a deadly accuracy. "And then not telling me if you were married; and all those hints about how everything would change when I learned who you are?"

"So now you're blaming me?"

"No!” He dropped his hand, leaving her cheek feeling colder without the warmth of his touch. “I'm saying that we both thought that it was clear, when it wasn't with our firsts and lasts and timelines out of order. How should I have known what you were thinking something so wrong? You _always_ know, River! You've always been clever enough, intuitive enough to read between the lines and know what to do, what I want, how I think. You told me once that I was loved, and by no one more than you. Well, I talk, River. All the time. But those kinds of words... they're too human. You were able to use words that I never could.

“And,” he hesitated, his next words emerging in a whisper, “I knew.”

The Doctor paused then, and she opened her mouth to ask just what he knew. To perhaps make a quip about how the Doctor was always meant to know everything… but then he sighed. River held her breath, unsure what to say. She could feel the tension in his body, could tell he was carefully sizing up his thoughts and how to present them.

“I know you, River Song,” said the Doctor softly. “I knew what saying those words would mean to you, how hard it was to admit something like that, when you tried to never care about anyone in case they would go away. I knew you made a choice to say that to me; and I knew I couldn’t have found the words to say it back and have it mean the same thing to you. So, I stood on a pyramid and made my own choice. I chose to marry you. That was how I could tell you how I feel.”

He sounded desperately sad; so sad it made her hearts hurt. "I thought even without saying the words, you'd understand, like you always had."

_River always knows._

In the darkness of their bedroom on Darillium, River smiled. Amy, Rory, and the Doctor had always put such faith in her knowing. But that ability had never been a special gift. It was memory; it was reading between the lines to see truth. It was time and maturity as she put together hints and clues to bring her to rapid understanding. 

And sometimes it was having the truth shouted at you when you least expect it, to force honesty and confrontation.

Anger dissipating, River chuckled aloud, running her fingers through the Doctor’s hair and tracing the soft grey curls. She rested her palm against his cheek as she turned his face toward her until she could press a kiss against his cheek. She let her lips linger there: one second, two, three...

And then he turned his head, his mouth against hers with bruising intensity as he pushed her down onto the bed. He tasted familiar. Intoxicating. Perfect. 

"I hate you," she murmured.

He grinned fiercely before kissing her again. "No, you don't."

And then there was no more need for words. She already knew what he meant.


End file.
